A three-judge panel from the Second Appellate District has rejected Danny Masterson’s appeal, leaving his 30-year prison sentence in place and keeping his parole ineligibility set until 2042. In a ruling issued after the second trial, the judges said the judgment is affirmed.
That matters now because it answers the question hanging over Masterson’s case: his convictions were not undone, and the sentence he received after the May 31, 2023 verdict still stands. He was arrested in 2020 over alleged assaults said to have taken place between 2001 and 2003 in his Hollywood Hills house, and he had been out on a $3 million bail until the guilty verdict in his second trial on two of three counts of sexual assault.
The panel also backed the way L.A. Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo handled the trials, rejecting Masterson’s challenge to the conduct of the proceedings and to the sentence itself. In an 89-page ruling, the judges said the trial court properly allowed evidence that the women had a pending civil action for damages against Masterson, Scientology and David Miscavige, with claims of harassment and stalking, and also allowed evidence of the settlement agreement between Masterson and J.B. and the amount paid under it.
That is the part of the case the defense wanted kept out. Masterson’s lawyers argued Scientology should not have been allowed into the trials, but the panel said admitting that evidence did not violate the First Amendment and was not an abuse of the court’s discretion. The judges also said the jury was not being asked to decide whether Scientology doctrine or beliefs were true or false, only to weigh evidence tied to the accusations and the defense.
J.B. and N.T. said they were told by officials at Scientology not to report the incidents to the police or face expulsion from the Church and its entire community, including their families. Both women were members of Scientology at the time of the assaults, and Masterson was once a prominent Scientology member, which is why the organization’s role kept surfacing in the courtroom and on appeal.
Cliff Gardner and Eric Multhaup said they will try to take the case to the California Supreme Court. They also plan to pursue habeas corpus relief, saying there is substantial exculpatory evidence that was never presented to the jury. For now, though, the appellate ruling leaves Masterson serving the sentence the trial court imposed, with the next fight likely to be over whether any higher court will take the case or give him another path to relief.
